Fiction Books

Because there were few adults in the crowd, and Colonel "Biff" Hawton stood over six feet tall, he could see every detail of the demonstration. The children—and most of the parents—gaped in wide-eyed wonder. Biff Hawton was too sophisticated to be awed. He stayed on because he wanted to find out what the trick was that made the gadget work. "It's all explained right here in your... more...

It is necessary to study the work of Joseph Addison in close relation to the time in which he lived, for he was a true child of his century, and even in his most distinguishing qualities he was not so much in opposition to its ideas as in advance of them. The early part of the eighteenth century was a very middle-aged period: the dreamers of the seventeenth century had grown into practical men; the... more...

CHAPTER I THE HOME OF CORNELIA MORAN Never, in all its history, was the proud and opulent city of New York more glad and gay than in the bright spring days of Seventeen-Hundred- and-Ninety-One. It had put out of sight every trace of British rule and occupancy, all its homes had been restored and re-furnished, and its sacred places re-consecrated and adorned. Like a young giant ready to run a race, it... more...

PART ONE    O I have seen a fair mermaid,That sang beside a lonely sea,And now her long black hair she'll braid,And be my own good wife to me.    O woe's the day you saw the maid,And woe's the song she sang the sea,In hell her long black hair she'll braid,For ne'er a soul at all has she! Sir Hugh and the Mermaiden. MARGARITA'S SOUL FATE WALKS BROADWAY Roger Bradley was... more...

CHAPTER I. AMERICA IN THE OLD DAYS. 1. The Story of our Country.—We are sure that every intelligent and patriotic American youth must like to read the story of our country's life. To a boy or girl of good sense no work of fiction can surpass it in interest or power. How delightful to let the imagination summon up the forms and the deeds of the fearless Norse sailors who dared to cross the... more...

CHAPTER I "Must I go, must I go,Away into the town?" (Swabian Folk-song.) Franz Vogt was on his way home. He carried a neatly tied-up parcel containing the under-linen and the boots that he had been buying in the town. He had trodden this same road a countless number of times during his life; but now that he must bid good-bye to it so soon, the old familiar surroundings presented themselves to... more...

A KNIGHT OF THE LEGION OF HONOR It was in the smoking-room of a Cunarder two days out. The evening had been spent in telling stories, the fresh-air passengers crowding the doorways to listen, the habitual loungers and card-players abandoning their books and games. When my turn came,—mine was a story of Venice, a story of the old palace of the Barbarozzi,—I noticed in one corner of the room a man... more...

now him? Yes, I know him—knew him. That was twenty years ago. Everybody knows him now. Everybody who passed him on the street knows him. Everybody who went to the same schools, or even to different schools in different towns, knows him now. Ask them. But I knew him. I lived three feet away from him for a month and a half. I shipped with him and called him by his first name. What was he like? What was... more...

It's difficult, when you're on one of the asteroids, to keep from tripping, because it's almost impossible to keep your eyes on the ground. They never got around to putting portholes in spaceships, you know—unnecessary when you're flying by GB, and psychologically inadvisable, besides—so an asteroid is about the only place, apart from Luna, where you can really see the stars.... more...

CHAPTER I Colwyn had never seen anything quite so eccentric in a public room as the behaviour of the young man breakfasting alone at the alcove table in the bay embrasure, and he became so absorbed in watching him that he permitted his own meal to grow cold, impatiently waving away the waiter who sought with obtrusive obsequiousness to recall his wandering attention by thrusting the menu card before... more...